Monday, May 23, 2011

Repost from My Boys Old Cards

This is from a short-lived blog I wrote in 2008 about a box I found of my son's old cards.

1996 McDonalds Happy Meal Beast Wars

When I was a kid, getting to go McDonald's was a rare treat. And when we did get to, since I come from a large family with 8 kids, we always had to split a hamburger two ways, split a fries three ways, and "you can just forget about getting a soda Mister!" So, when we had Tommy I vowed I would never ever make him share his burger and fries, and "Yes, Sonny, you can get all the Hi-C you want." Man, I still love that Hi-C at McDonald's. Anyhow, I decided to even step it up a notch and let him start getting Happy Meals. Especially the cool ones with Hot Wheels and Transformers.

I was very pleased when I discovered not one but a bunch of these former Happy Meals cards of Tommy's, all carefully punched out from their perforated little homes on the sides of the Happy Meal box. This is what they would have looked like before they were liberated:I found 10 different cards of Tommy's. From what I was able to research I found that 8 came on one Happy Meal box. So there should be at least 16 different cards. Take away the title card which I assume was on each version of the box, then you have 15 different cards. But with Tommy's 10 plus 4 I saw on eBay, I'm still lacking 1 or maybe 2 cards. And there's no number on the card backs.

Anyhow, lets get into the ones Tommy has: Above are the two leaders of the Beast Wars, Optimus Primal the Maximal General, and Megatron the Predacon Commander. Bad dudes ready to kick your little heinie and not think twice about it.

Scorpionok - Check out those vice-grip claws, ouch.

Rhino - Three-D glasses would bring that first right into your face!

Beetle - ooh there's a scary and life-threatening name.

Razorbeast - See Pumba in the background? Smell Pumba in the background? And he's grinning like he just let loose too. Hakuna-matata, Dude!

Polar Claw - One of the better names, and those claws are pretty sharp and steely, but Mr Polar Bear on the left looks more like a Care Bear. And shouldn't the Transformer be white instead of red? Unless of course the red represents the blood and carnage our Care Bear friend is about to unleash. In which case, all bets are off.

Panther - Both the Transformer and the Beast look pretty angry. Might not want to mess with them.

I don't have pictures of the other ones I know about - Waspinator, Manta Ray, Terrosuar and Tarantular, but you get the idea now. Great series of cards. If you know where I can find a complete list, please leave a comment.